Selkies
THE INTERNET GETS EVERYWHERE
Background. There are many stories of seal-maidens, seals who come to shore, take off their skins and are seen as beautiful women who dance on the seashore before putting their skins back on and returning to the water as seals.
Often, in the stories, a fisherman sees the seal-maidens dancing and steals one of the skins. That woman is forced to remain on land, marries the fisherman and bears him several children. At some point one of the children discovers the sealskin that the fisherman had hidden, brings it to his mother, and asks her what it is. She puts it on and returns to the sea, usually leaving the children on shore.
The story is normally told from the fisherman’s viewpoint. But to me it is a tale of kidnap and rape and long-term sexual abuse, resonating with several recent cases. I wish a good story teller would tell the story together with the real parallels.
These seal-humans are known as selkies. A skerry — mentioned later — is a small island.
A reverse form of the story tells of a seal-man who woos and makes love to a human woman. In later years she marries a human, a gunner who shoots the selkie and their seal-child. The best known version of this is called The Great Selkie of Sule Skerry. Hence the key point of this story.
There was a man who thought of himself as a great hunter.
He wasn’t an old-style hunter, hunting to feed himself, his family, and his community. No, he was very modern, hunting large fierce animals for his own glory and to show off their heads on his wall. He would have been happy to shoot a lion that was regarded as a mascot in its neighbourhood if someone else had not got there first.
He had heard of an unusual animal that could be found on an island to the north-west of Scotland, and he decided it would make a great trophy.
He hired a boat and sailed towards the island. As he approached he could hear a sound that seemed almost like singing. He could make out the figure of a large beast in the distance.
It was just within range of his gun, and, since he thought of himself as a great hunter, he decided to fire without coming any closer, in case the beast should move.
He shot, and there was a cry of pain from the island.
He landed on the island, and found that he had shot a large bull seal. So powerful was his shot that it had gone right through the seal’s head and killed a young seal nearby.
Being a very modern man, he took out his smartphone, and made a picture of himself with his foot on the seal.
He uploaded this picture to his Facebook page, and to Instagram. Loads of people saw it, and the picture went viral, with fierce arguments as to whether anyone had the right to kill animals as he did.
And ever after he became known as
The Man who Shot the Great Selfie of Sule Skerry.
©Daniel Cohen
